A Trip To Petco Park

A Trip To Petco Park
by Martell

Recently, I made my first trip to Petco Park in San Diego. My wife and I went with about 30 of her co-workers--it was part of a weekend retreat for her company--and we had a very good time. The group was staying at the Hotel Del Coronado, and we all took a water taxi across the bay to the stadium.

One of the first things I wanted to do upon entering the park was to find our commemorative brick. Explanation: Outside the Western Metal Building in left field is a plaza that is partially paved with about 9000 commemorative bricks, arranged in rings around 15-20 planters. My wife and I have a brick with our names on it, along with our wedding date, which was a gift from my brother. The only problem I foresaw was that I wasn't exactly sure where our brick was located. Minor details.

Rather than miss the entire game searching for our brick, I instead devised a challenge for the group. While we were waiting in line, I got them all together, explained to them about the brick, and offered up $20 to the first person to find it. I figured 9000 bricks, 30 people, 1 brick per second--we'll find this thing in 5 minutes tops, and maybe faster.

The first problem we had was that half of the group got into the plaza a couple of minutes earlier than the other half. And of course, the second half came in and started searching the same sections that the first half had already searched. The second problem was that the combination of hangovers, lack of sleep and adrenaline created a Mass ADD Syndrome within the group, which was not exactly conducive to finding a needle in a haystack. You can probably guess where this is going...

15 minutes later, we still have no brick. About half of the searchers have left for their seats. Another three or four are sitting on the stairs, while the rest of them are slowly orbiting a couple of the planters, heads down, eyes glazed over. I'm not sure they were even reading bricks at this point. The search was rapidly deteriorating. We needed some help.

I quickly got on the phone with my brother and started listing off the names of the planters, hoping one would ring a bell. "'Double Play'? I'm not sure. 'Dinger'? Mmm, maybe. 'Around the Horn'? I don't think so. 'Beisbol'? Uhh... 'Ducks on the Pond'? That could be it." That could be it? He thought that could be it! Heck, that was enough for me!

I pulled the few remaining planets out of orbit and confidently told them what section the brick was in. A planet named Shea asked, "Where is 'Ducks on the Pond'?" I pointed off to the left and she walked over, along with the rest of the group. About one second later, she said, "Here it is." Literally one second. She walked up to the nearest edge of the section, stopped, looked down, and there it was. It must have been overlooked at least 100 times by the group; by all rights, we should have been done with this thing in under two minutes. I blame it on the hangovers.

We headed up to our seats, where I was fortunate enough to have two of the bigger baseball fans of the group sitting within a couple of seats of me. Off to my left was Tommy, who is a Mets fan, accompanied by Kim, the mother of his child. (By the way, isn't it about time the English language added a word for this type of relationship? I mean, it's becoming more and more common for people to have a kid together without getting married, but to call her his "girlfriend" seems to understate the relationship a little, don't you think? I don't know. Until someone comes up with something better, I'm going to refer to her as his M.C., as in Mother of his Child. I think it has a nice ring to it.)

Anyway, I've got Tommy the Mets Fan and his M.C. Kim off to my left, and Bob behind me to my right. I'm not sure if Bob has favorite team. He just seems to be a Fan of the Game, in the same way some people consider themselves Citizens of the World. He would gladly watch any two teams play; all he wants to see is a well-played game, a rare occurrence or two, and a stadium that adds to the whole experience. Give him this, along with a miniature souvenir bat, and he is happy.

I don't know if you've seen Petco Park on TV yet, but I'm sure you've heard that it's a pitchers park. The dimensions are pretty large--395 to dead center, which really isn't that bad, until you see it's 415 in the power alleys and something like 340 down the lines. Actually, there is a small section down the right field line that juts out into the field. If a player hits it just down the line, it's only 315 for a homer, but the section's only about six rows deep and twenty seats across. From an aerial view, it looks like a little bump on the outfield wall.

This design led Bob to come up with the following analogy: You know how in SkeeBall there are concentric rings, with the range of scores being 10-50, but then up in the corners there are a couple other small rings that are worth 100 points--but if you miss, you only get 10 points? Well, that's exactly what this is like. All 325-foot fly balls are outs, unless the batter is able to place it perfectly down the line, in which case they get a home run. As far as I'm concerned, this section shall now be called SkeeBall Corner.

Oh yeah, the game. The game was pretty boring for the most part, which really didn't bother me. All I cared about was getting to see Trevor Hoffman pitch--if he was pitching, that meant the Padres had the lead in the ninth, which meant they were probably going to win; plus, he has the greatest entrance ever. When he comes into the game, the lights go down, the crowd gets really quiet, and then BONG! BONG!-- "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC gets blasted over the PA system. It's completely chilling. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

The Padres did their part, scoring two in the eighth to take a one-run lead. The lights dimmed. The bullpen door opened. And then--BONG! BONG!--actually, it was more like bong, bong. It sounded like "Hell's Bells" was being played on about a half-dozen transistor radios! What kind of introduction was that? Maybe it sounded better in the good seats (I'll check it out and get back to you), but in the upper deck, it was awful. What a buzzkill.

One other minor complaint: the nachos sucked. The chips were totally stale and they barely gave us any jalepenos. I guess I can kind of understand--they were serving a large crowd and all--but from a big-picture perspective, I still don't get it. I mean, how can a baseball stadium 30 minutes from freaking MEXICO have bad nachos?!? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Overall, though, it's a good place. Not only am I happy to see the Padres in a baseball-only stadium, the Gaslamp District has much more life to it now. I would recommend making a visit. If you ever get a chance to go, look for my brick.

Martell can be reached at martell@babblog.com.